


Cherry Fingertips

by Dracarysforged



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Dom Irene Adler, Dom John Watson, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Irene Adler Ships Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Jealous John, John Waton and Irene Adler Come To An Understanding, Light BDSM, M/M, Mrs. Hudson Ships It, Pre-Relationship, References to Drugs, The riding crop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracarysforged/pseuds/Dracarysforged
Summary: Sherlock asks Irene for help with a case and John isn’t sure any of them quite know what just happened except that Sherlock carries a bruise well.
Relationships: Irene Adler & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	Cherry Fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the 6 months Sherlock has Irene's mobile in 2x01
> 
> Errors are my own, not brit-picked  
> THANK YOU for giving my first work a chance, enjoy!

When John turns around from bolting the front door behind him, almost an obsession now since Mrs. Hudson was attacked, it’s to find said landlady hovering by the banister looking immensely disapproving. 

“Just where have you been?” She snaps.

John’s brain takes a moment to catch up. “Uh…” he says, feeling like a child under her frowning gaze, “...out.”

It occurs to him, rather too late, that he might be more buzzed than he initially realized. She looks him over with an intensity that would put Sherlock to shame and huffs loudly.

“Well you could have taken him with you!” She waves vaguely up the steps, “I’ve no idea what he’s doing up there, banging around and talking to himself all night. He’s driving me around the bend!”

John rubs at his face. “I was just out with Stamford for a few pints. You know I can’t take him, he gets bored and Sherlock bored gets me banned from pubs. Why didn’t you just tell him to shut it?”

“Oh yes John, like that’s ever worked.” He truly isn’t drunk enough for the level of sarcasm in her voice right now. “Besides, he’s locked the door.”

John feels sobriety hit him like a bucket of ice water over the head. “He what?”

She gestures again, “locked it! And shouted at me when I tried to let myself in! Can you believe the nerve!”

John is bolting up the steps before she can even finish her sentence, his heart racing in his chest. The door locked means drugs or it means someone is in there within him who would think to lock it and both are terrifying thoughts.

Sure enough, there are muttered voices. Two, unless his ears are failing him, but they are too quiet to make out the words. There is a sharp _thwack_ sound and Sherlock lets out a choked noise of surprise. 

John tries the handle, somehow still surprised to find it locked even though Mrs. Hudson said it had been. He curses, he should have grabbed a spare key from her! Why would he ever bother carrying his own? It’s not like Sherlock has ever locked this door in his life. 

He pounds on the door, roaring, “Unlock this door Sherlock or I’m taking it apart with my bare hands!”

It only occurs to him after that whoever is in there could be armed and shoot through the door, but it’s too late for that now.

“Oooooh,” a woman’s voice croons, just loud enough for him to make out, “now that’s a guest that could make this a little more interesting.”

John’s stomach falls into his shoes. 

It’s Irene Adler. 

He’d know that voice anywhere. Alluring, pulling you in with eyes and lips and teeth, a little curved and sharp and wicked at the end like a fishhook. 

“We’re a bit... _disposed_...at the moment Dr. Watson. Are you sure you wish to come in?” Irene calls out, sounding endlessly amused.

John breathes carefully through his nose, but still his voice comes out with more venom that he intends. “Open this door, or I take it apart.”

She heaves a long-suffering dramatic sigh worthy of Sherlock himself.

The next 10 seconds are ranked somewhere in the longest of John’s life. Sherlock doesn’t actually say anything coherent, but John can hear him mumbling, driving John’s blood pressure steadily higher.

Irene’s pristine heels click across the floor, the lock turns, and the door opens slowly. 

For a moment, John wonders if this is what it is like to be Sherlock. His brain is boiling like a pot with the lid on, shaking and rattling, and he notices a number of details in the space of a few breaths. 

Irene walks back over to Sherlock who is splayed out in the middle of the floor, daintily stepping so that she straddles one of his legs, the toes of one perfect shoe just pressed to the top of inner thigh. She’s wearing his Belstaff coat, her riding crop in one hand, a reproduction of the first time they met. 

Sherlock looks ...debauched. There is no other word for it. His shirt is open three buttons deep, jacket missing, bare feet flexing, and he’s blushed from his ears into the shadows of his clothes.

Irene runs the edge of the riding crop over one cheekbone and _he leans into it_ , like a cat searching for contact, and she makes a contented sound.

Irene pulls out her cell phone and snaps a photo. 

“Well...” is all John can manage.

“Well,” Irene shrugs, parroting him mockingly. She tilts her head, assessing, and takes another photo from a new angle. “I told you, you might not want to come in. I’d offer to let you join us, but somehow I don’t think you’d appreciate it the same way.”

John rubs a hand over his face. “What is this, exactly? Should I leave? Put a sock on the door on the way out?”

Irene’s smile bursts out over her face but before she can reply, Sherlock finally speaks. 

“Oh, hello John.” 

He tries and fails for casual, but his voice is unmistakably slurred and John feels the rattling in his head ratchet up another notch. 

“Did you drug him?” The coldness of his voice frightens even him, Irene’s smile fades a little and Sherlock tries, and fails, to sit up. Groaning when he falls back to the floor with a muted thump. 

John lunges for Sherlock, Irene neatly stepping out of the way, and grabs him by the face. One of his cheekbones is just starting to swell and purple, and there is a massive livid bruise peeking out of his gaping shirt collar, ringed in teeth marks and a hint of red lipstick.

“John, it’s fine,” Sherlock grumbles, trying to bat John’s hands away and missing entirely. “For a case.”

John digs his fingers just slightly into Sherlock’s hair, trying to keep himself from slapping Sherlock right across his already bruised face. A cursory check shows Sherlock’s pulse is steady, his pupils are blown wide but not uneven, and he seems to be breathing normally, so John assumes it’s the same chemical as last time which made Sherlock docile and floppy as a sleepy puppy but had no lasting effects. 

When he can quell the shaking in his hands, he manhandles Sherlock’s tall frame up off the rug and onto the couch. Sherlock keeps sliding boneless from his hands and complaining in a barely intelligible voice the whole way. 

John pointedly ignores Irene, who perches herself on the armrest of Sherlock’s chair, the leather of her riding crop creaking under her fingers as she watches them. 

Sherlock curls into the back of the couch as John covers him with the throw, still muttering to himself, and John considers him safe for the moment. John stomps past Irene into the kitchen, knowing she will follow. 

He rounds on her. She opens her mouth but he cuts her off. 

“He’s an addict.”

She snaps her mouth shut, her eyes tightening around the edges. 

“Now,” John continues, gripping the table so he doesn’t leap over it and _strangle her_ , “you’re so bloody smart. So, either you knew that, and you still keep sticking him with needles, or, you aren’t as good as you thought.”

“Of course I knew. It’s quite literally my job - to distract people from their hungers with new hungers. I’m telling you he’s fine, the method of intake isn’t any more triggering than getting a vaccine.”

“Do you care at all if you were to trigger him?”

”We’re all addicts, in our own way.” She finally replies, but she sounds sad. “Feeding his addiction for a little bit of quiet won’t harm him. At least, not irreparably.”

John rubs his hands over his face again, sighing. “Well I think we both know Sherlock isn’t suddenly going to be a, ‘choke me daddy,’ type so...do I want to know what this was actually about?”

Her eyes light up with delight, “Why John Watson! Do you like to be called daddy?!”

John can’t help the wicked grin that jumps to his face. Perhaps he dislikes her so much because she’s closer to kin than he wants to admit, “Why? Do you want to?”

Irene has some of that sparkle back, a wickedness playing about her that he’d last seen while she was wrapped in that same coat, perched in a window with all of London's sky framing her smile.

“I’m remembering why I like you, Watson. You bite,” she says appreciatively. She watches him for a long moment in which he refuses to blink and suddenly she shrugs, the spell broken. “He said it was for a case. Something about force, the rate and shape of the bruising. It’s the first time he’s texted back in ages, it sounded fun.”

“Yes. Fun.” John offers sarcastically.

Just the corner of her mouth quirks up, “don’t knock it ‘til you try it, Dr. Watson. Though, I believe I underestimated you before. I thought you were jealous, but I think more specifically you are jealous you weren’t the one with the riding crop.”

John just stares at her stonily, not bothering to grace her with a defense or reply. 

Her smile ticks up a little more and she steps closer, resting the riding crop on John’s chest.

“But Sherlock?” She says his name with a sound not unlike the text alert on Sherlock’s phone. “My god, he _loves_ it. He bruises so delicately-”

“Stop.” John snaps.

She closes her mouth, but her eyes glitter with amusement.

“Is there a reason you're wearing his coat? Did you have to be naked for this particular experiment? Or this one of your things, something you _like?_ ” John asks, in the same tone she uses when she says it. 

Irene’s grin goes feral. She pulls the lapels of the coat apart and John resists the urge to turn away. But, surprisingly, she’s in a stunning, but rather normal dress, impeccably cut and the same deep black as her stilettos.

“I wear it because it’s what _he_ likes,” she replies simply. 

She doesn’t wait for a reply and indeed, John doesn’t have one. She pulls Sherlock’s coat tight around her once more, pocketing the riding crop. “I’ll just see myself out then, shall I?”

He walks her all the way to the sidewalk and sees her into a cab. He knows that by not taking Sherlock’s coat back, she’ll be back eventually, but a small, bitter part of him acknowledges that maybe Sherlock wants her around. 

Just before she closes the door, she pauses.

“You know, Dr. Watson. The best way to stop an addiction is to find a new one. As I said, business security for me. Perhaps you should consider the merit of...distraction.”

She flashes a crisp white card that seems to appear from thin air and tucks it into his top jacket pocket with a fond tap. “If you have further need of my services,” she leans in close to whisper, "do take care of him for me, will you? It's not my policy to leave a client without proper aftercare."

When she leans back, her smile is cold and she snaps the car door shut on him, once again leaving with the last word. 

When he steps back inside, he can tell Mrs. Hudson is listening at her door _(floorboard creaks, just the faintest outline on her at the edge of the glass_ ) but she doesn’t come out to ask him what happened. 

He trudges up the stairs, the loss of adrenaline leaving him tired and a little sick. When he lets himself back into the flat, Sherlock is on his back now, his hands steepled under his chin. 

“You’re awake then?” John asks quietly. 

Sherlock hums, but doesn’t open his eyes. “It was a smaller dose, she wasn’t trying to incapacitate me like last time.” He sounds a little clearer now, but there is still a softness to the edges of his words that belies his current state. 

“She said it was for a case?”

Sherlock points towards the side table next to his chair on which John’s own laptop is currently sitting open, screen dark. John picks it up and sits heavily in his own armchair, bringing it out of sleep to see what Sherlock had been reading. 

A story about a young celebrity who tried to report abuse, her husband claiming she frequents BDSM sex clubs. High profile, probably the husband has got off on charges before or Lestrade wouldn’t have brought it to Sherlock’s attention. It’s a mere 3 at best, the police would have figured it out eventually. The picture has her ducking press on the steps outside a courthouse, her curtain of long dark hair failing to hide her tears or the large bruised scrape across her cheek. Brick wall, John thinks idly, someone pressed her into it and then let her fall. 

“She’s telling the truth.” John prompts, it’s not a question.

Sherlock almost seems to start, but composes himself quickly. “Of course. Husband is lying, her bruising is consistent with struggle. No dom worth their salt would let her leave in that state. BDSM play that involves striking should leave bruises that follow the lines of the body, a natural progression.” He points to the purpling on his face that does indeed follow the line of his cheekbone cleanly, almost a blush. 

“And you asked Irene Adler for help?”

“She was the logical choice. It is, after all, her profession.”

John can hear his own teeth grinding. 

“Sherlock, she's not exactly concerned for your safety.”

Sherlock shrugs like _who is?_ and John has to resist hurling the computer at him. 

In a burst of movement, Sherlock kicks his way free of the throw, stands too quickly, and sways, crashing his shin into the coffee table and swearing elegantly in several languages. 

“You deserved that,” John offers, not bothering to ask if he’s okay. 

Sherlock rubs at his shin and pushes the coffee table roughly askew with his foot, sending papers and mail sliding to the floor. He moves towards the kitchen, but without any of his usual precision, clipping the edge of the door on the way in. 

“What are you doing Sherlock?”

There is no answer.

John turns to look over his shoulder and Sherlock is just staring at an empty mug like tea will appear. He notices John watching him and points to the mug. 

“Isn’t there usually tea in this?”

“You locked Mrs. Hudson out.”

“Ah.”

Sherlock continues to brood over the empty cup, his face unreadable.

John stands with a sigh and sets about making tea. He fills the kettle and flicks the switch on, reaches past Sherlock to add a second empty mug to the counter and teabags in both cups, slams the silverware drawer into Sherlock’s thigh, and all the while Sherlock doesn’t budge an inch. 

John refuses to ask what he’s thinking about.

He leans against the counter next to where Sherlock is still staring at his own tea like he hasn’t noticed the cup is full now. John holds his mug in both hands and gently blows on it, feeling calm enough now to let Sherlock come off of whatever wild train of thought he's currently stuck on in his own time.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when Sherlock suddenly turns to loom over him, instead of the teacup, causing John to startle and narrowly avoid spilling hot tea on his fingers. 

Sherlock watches him for an intensely long moment and John ignores him steadily. 

He’s halfway through a sip of tea when Sherlock says, almost a whisper, “it was quiet, John.”

John chokes, coughing. He sets his tea on the counter, bringing an arm over his mouth. 

“W-what?” he manages to get out between breaths. 

Sherlock, if possible, moves even closer. John has to look up at him now, but strangely Sherlock is the one who looks small and unsure. 

“It was...quiet. My head, when she...it was quiet, for just a moment.”

John stares at him for a while. 

“You...liked it.” It’s not a question. 

Sherlock’s face scrunches, his head twisting on his neck like the words are hurting him.

“Like is a function of sentiment John, I merely...observed.”

This time, it’s John’s turn to step forward. To crowd Sherlock back against the counter and watch the emotions chase themselves across his face, emotions Sherlock claims not to feel but John knows better. Confusion, curiosity, something that flickers like want. 

“You. Liked. It.” John says again.

Sherlock moves to turn away, and John catches him by the wrist tightly. The sigh Sherlock lets out is almost inaudible but his eyes lock on where John has a hold of him. 

If asked about it later, John could never tell you exactly what happened next. He doesn’t know who leaned in first, he doesn’t know who knocks Sherlock’s cup of tea from the counter with a crash, he doesn’t know who grabbed who first.

All he knows is suddenly his arms are full of Sherlock and they are kissing like the other holds all the oxygen in the room. 

Sherlock mumbles something between their mouths and John says, “shut up, shut up,” and presses in harder. There will be questions later, awkwardness, perhaps even regret, but right now the whole world is reduced to the cool bite of Sherlock’s mouth, followed by a touch of sweetness. Sherlock’s been at the sugar cubes again, he likes the texture, eats them from the bowl when Mrs. Hudson isn’t looking and crunches annoyingly. 

Sherlock is more adept at kissing than John anticipated, but he still kisses like an experiment, like he’s taking apart and examining each element of John and putting it back together in new ways. 

John has him pressed roughly back into the counter, so that Sherlock’s not quite standing up straight and their heights are more closely matched. He grabs Sherlock by the waist and by the open collar of his shirt, pulling him in, and Sherlock lets out a sharp, surprised breath against his mouth. Sherlock has one hand in a white knuckle grip on the edge of the counter, but the other traces the bones of John’s face, a strange push and sweep as if he’s identifying and testing each one. 

John can’t help the smile that twists his mouth under Sherlock’s. Of course Sherlock would never be capable of focusing only on a kiss, part of his brain cataloguing and filing at all times. It’s so perfectly, beautifully Sherlock that it makes John want to kiss him all the more. 

When they finally break, John has absolutely no idea how much time has passed and it’s glorious. He was wrong about Sherlock being debauched before, only now does he deserve the term. His mouth is red and just a little swollen to match the bruise growing on his cheekbone, his eyes dark, his shirt half untucked and his breath heaving in his chest. 

John leans his forehead against Sherlock’s, fighting to regain control of his breath and focusing on noticing as many details about Sherlock in this moment as possible.

Sherlock shifts forward and suddenly winces. Their eyes both dart down and Sherlock mutters, “bollocks” under his breath. 

John has to fight down a laugh. “You just stepped on a piece of glass, didn’t you?”

Sherlock closes his eyes tightly, looking utterly inconvenienced. “It would...seem so.”

John does laugh this time, but he pulls out a chair and helps Sherlock into it. He peeks at the cut, not too deep, and chuckles again when Sherlock winces under his touch. 

“I don’t know what’s so bloody amusing John,” Sherlock mutters, but his tone only makes it all the funnier. 

John makes him promise to sit and stay and fetches the first aid kit from below the sink. He sets it to the side, quickly cleaning the glass and spilled tea from the floor before he turns back to Sherlock who is peering at the bottom of his foot, half in anger and half in interest. 

He makes quick work of pulling the small piece of glass there and cleaning the cut. It’s in the soft arch of Sherlock’s foot and is sure to be a bitch to heal, but thankfully not too deep. John is hyper aware of the flex of Sherlock’s foot in his hands, pale and surprisingly soft, the bones and veins of him all shifting under the surface of thin skin and so alive under John’s hands. He pointedly does not look up at Sherlock’s face. 

He knows his touch lingers and drags, watches himself do it while berating himself the whole time, but Sherlock for once does not fidget or pull away. When John finally lets him go, he leans forward almost immediately, reaching for John. 

John pulls away, Sherlock’s fingers just brushing his arm but not quite catching, and stands quickly, avoiding the look on Sherlock’s face. 

“John-”

“We need to talk.” John cuts him off. 

When John can finally bring himself to look Sherlock in the face, he’s surprised to find that Sherlock almost looks angry. 

“What do you want, Sherlock?” John asks, refusing to wilt under Sherlock’s stare. 

“I was under the impression we were about to have sex, but clearly you’ve changed your mind.”

John knew it was coming and still he chokes. “Well, um…”

“Tedious,” Sherlock mutters, pushing past John roughly to pace the living room, heedless of his freshly bandaged foot. He kicks the coffee table even further askew on his way past. 

“Now hang on,” John says, following him, feeling a little angry himself now. “Tedious? Talking to me is tedious?”

“Yes, of course, always.” Sherlock replies dryly, turning on the spot like he’s looking for something. 

“Thanks for that,” John returns, just as dry, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yes, please do. Do you plan to continue talking then or are you over whatever crisis you were having?”

“Sherlock!” John barks. 

“Nope,” Sherlock turns away again, popping the “p” annoyingly, “not over it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, I’m not having a crisis.”

Sherlock waves a hand vaguely, sorting through a stack of loose papers precariously left on the corner of the table with the other. “Sexuality, our relationship, your friends, my sexuality. It’s all written on your face.”

“Despite what you think, Sherlock Holmes, you can’t read my mind.”

Sherlock scoffs loudly, John can hear his own teeth grinding. 

_Punch him? Kiss him?_ His brain screams. 

Sherlock turns in just a way that a passing car illuminates the bruise traversing the plane of his cheek and something in John snaps. 

He crowds Sherlock back against the couch so quickly that Sherlock trips over the throw he left on the floor and into the battered loveseat with an oof of surprise, forced to look up at John now who is employing every looming skill he’s ever learned watching Sherlock. 

Sherlock’s face twists cruelly, “oh, trying your hand at being a dom now, John?”

John presses a thumb sharply to the bruise on his face and Sherlock sucks in a breath.

“I don’t need to “try” anything.” John whispers between them. 

He lets Sherlock go abruptly and Sherlock’s hand shoots to his cheek, his face a mask of confused anger. 

“We’re adults,” John says, taking a step back and pulling in several deep breaths. “Either we can talk about this like adults, or we pretend it never happened.”

Sherlock, still holding his face, nods once. 

“Is that what you wanted then Sherlock? Sex? You were going to sleep with Irene before I showed up?”

“No,” Sherlock bites out sharply, then again, softer this time. “No. It's not...like that with her.”

John remembers her voice in the warehouse, “ _Well I...am.”_

“And apparently it is like that with me? So, why did you ask her then?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, “it was for a case John, I’m not lying. She was the logical choice for the data I needed. I let her have her fun, I was able to get my data. If you are trying to ask why I didn’t ask you? Well, I’m sorry, apparently I missed that you were secretly a trained dominant in your spare time and I don’t believe either of us was expecting this particular turn of events tonight.”

On another day, in another place, John would relive the words ,”I’m sorry apparently I missed…” coming from Sherlock’s mouth for the rest of his natural life. It does at least cause a grin to break through the simmering anger he’s been wallowing in since this whole thing started. 

“And?” John prompts and Sherlock shoots him a sharp look. 

“And what?”

“And, you didn’t expect you’d like it so much?” And, maybe you overestimated your ability to suppress emotions? An ability, by the way, I still have no idea why you are so bloody proud of.”

“I’m a sociopath John, I don’t suppress-”

“You can stop that lie right there.”

“Don’t be an idiot, John. Despite what you and Mycroft assume, I am not and never have been some blushing virgin.” He spits the words with all the venom the mention of Mycroft’s name has ever brought up in him. 

“Pretty sure it’s not just me and Mycroft,” John replies, “you don’t exactly portray an aura of…”

“Of what, John?” Sherlock mocks in a sarcastic voice which somehow makes John grin even harder.

“Of interested? I don’t know. Donovan thinks you are a necrophiliac by the way, you should probably nip that rumor in the bud.”

Sherlock hurls himself down on the couch cushions in a huff, “well, you seem content to keep spreading it so why should I bother?”

“Sherlock if you are gonna act like a child, I will treat you like a child and that certainly includes my face never coming anywhere near your face again.”

Sherlock sits upright again and sighs long sufferingly, scrubbing hard through his hair so that when he lifts his head the curls are going every which direction. 

“Ugh, god. You know me John, you’ve seen me work. I don’t seek it out, the way you all do!” 

He says _you_ and gestures vaguely across the sweep of the room which John takes to mean the average every day bustle of life Sherlock doesn’t consider himself part of. “Do you really think I’ve never had sex with someone for a case? Then there was that memorable year Mycroft cut me off, and you know how addicts are.”

Sherlock tries for dark and mysterious, but there is a breathy pitch to the end of his declaration that John isn’t ready to prod at yet. 

There is a tense silence John doesn’t know how to fill. Sherlock fidgets. 

“And yes, I’m clean in all senses of the word, bar whatever it is Adler so loves stabbing people with, harmless anyway. In case my being a filthy addict is worrying you.” Sherlock snaps at the exact same time John says--

“-But you’ve never? With someone you fancy?”

It takes John’s brain a moment to catch up, but Sherlock is already moving on before he can reply. 

“Fancy?” Sherlock repeats with derision dripping from every letter. 

“Yes, fancy, you arse! Someone you like in a sentimental fashion! Stop saying it like it’s something disgusting. Adults are supposed to communicate these things, ask you know? Not everyone attaches feelings to sex or the other way round, but, it’s important to ask.”

“Why would I? It’s already exceedingly obvious how you feel.”

“Oh, is it?” John feels himself matching the petulant, sarcastic anger Sherlock is giving off in waves. 

“I can tell when someone is aroused John.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you Sherlock. This is a lot more than that, for me. It means something.”

Sherlock’s mouth pulls to one side and then the other.

“Sentiment,” he finally says, a note of curiosity to the word.

“Sentiment,” John repeats.

Sherlock opens his mouth, closes it again. Tilts his head in a way that John knows means he’s scanning his memories, sifting through them like a file cabinet. 

“Well…” Sherlock finally says. 

John reaches out, his reflexes always better than anyone ever assumes, even Sherlock, who he grabs tightly by the jaw, tilting his head back slightly. Sherlock swallows under his touch, but does not pull away, his flint eyes screaming of challenge. 

“It’s going to be me,” John says quietly, leaning in close. “You’ll have one file in that drawer, and it’ll have my name on it.”

“That seems likely.” Sherlock mutters, as if unable to help himself getting in the last word. 

John leans down to press his mouth to Sherlock’s, giving Sherlock plenty of time to pull away, but Sherlock leans into the touch. John wonders at the absolutely wild mess his life has become, at the surprising softness of Sherlock’s mouth, full of sharp teeth and words, at the cool touch of Sherlock’s hand over the bones in his wrist. 

John tightens his fingers just slightly against the sharp edge of Sherlock’s jaw and swallows the sound Sherlock makes. 

There is something about the adrenaline, the rush of power, in that sound that almost collapses John at the knees. Sherlock, who so often has the world around him struck weak-kneed and silent, now panting quietly, open-mouthed, in John’s grip and the grip of his own addictions. 

The thought is a stark reminder. No matter the dosage or the drug, Sherlock is impaired in every sense of the word, and John doesn’t play that game. 

He drops Sherlock from his grasp but he catches John by the wrist before he can step away, “Wait, John. It’s fine.”

John looks down at Sherlock’s long, slender fingers wrapped around his wrist and has to mentally stuff this all in a box for morning, the uneasy swooping of his stomach from earlier returning with it’s new friend, a low grade, grinding headache. 

“It’s not, Sherlock. I’ve been drinking, you’re still high. We’re going to bed.”

“Our own beds,” John adds sharply when Sherlock opens his mouth. 

“I’m not tired,” Sherlock finally says, sounding dangerously close to whinging. 

“Then play the violin. Go have tea with Mrs. Hudson. Anything but leaving the building or anything involving fire, please.” 

“What am I, grounded?!” Sherlock snaps. 

“Yes!” John catches himself yelling and immediately draws back. “Yes. You don’t need to be skulking the alleys of London, high and looking like you got in a streetfight. Put some ice on your face and amuse yourself.”

“That’s never going to happen.”

John, and Sherlock for perhaps one of the first times in his life, jump at the sound of Mrs. Hudson’s voice. She’s standing in the open doorway, looking pleased and a little wicked, a tray of tea and nibbles in her hands. 

“H-how long have you been there?” John asks. 

“Now who wants a snack and a proper tea?” Mrs. Hudson asks kindly, completely ignoring the question, sweeping into the kitchen and where they can hear her muttering about the mess and moving china. 

Her face was utteraly unreadable and he exchanges a brief glance with Sherlock who is looking both murderous and unsure, a bad combo for John’s desire to simply go to bed.

“Come along boys,” she calls from the kitchen, “get it before it’s cold!”

Sherlock stands slowly and shuffles past John into the kitchen. He buttons his shirt up as he goes and grabs his dressing gown off the hook. John is momentarily too horrified by the thought of what Mrs. Hudson has seen, to immediately follow. 

“Sherlock, what happened to your face? You look a mess!” Mrs. Hudson cries, snapping John out of his reverie. When he gets into the kitchen, Sherlock has curled all his limbs onto a single chair, sipping at a cup of tea more milk than tea and looking marginally less grumpy. He never answers about the bruises and she frowns at him.

Mrs. Hudson turns and catches John by the face, turning his head this way and that in the light. 

“You poor dear,” she tsks, turning to Sherlock. “Keeping him up all hours of the night worried about you, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirks up despite himself, and John can see him wrestling the smile back down. 

Mrs. Hudson pats John on the face and lets him go, handing him a cup of tea with lemon, no sugar, no milk. “And you best slow down on the pints with Stamford. At this rate I’ll outlive both of you.”

“A given,” Sherlock mutters into his tea.

“What was that?” she turns on him sharply. 

Sherlock looks to her, looks at John, looks at his tea, John again, and says, “nothing.” An uncharacteristic display of self-preservation.

She looks back and forth between them both, a fond smile on her face.

“Oh you boys~”

“The tea is lovely, Mrs. Hudson,” John says, not sure how else to reply, “thanks.”

John is trying to ignore Sherlock watching him, but somehow his eyes are always in the corner of John’s vision. Neither of them hears a word of what Mrs. Hudson is on about, peering in the fridge, grimacing and poking Sherlock’s glassware and tupperware full of swirling mysterious substances. 

Mrs. Hudson suddenly yanks John’s mug out of his hand, replacing it with a bag of frozen peas he didn’t know they had, wrapped in a tea towel. 

“For his face,” she says with a stern look, pointing to Sherlock who looks as if he’s trying to hide behind his own mug. 

She leaves the room with a clap to John’s shoulder and a wave. 

“And keep it down you two,” she calls as she pulls the door closed behind her with a lascivious wink, leaving John and Sherlock trapped in a silence so awkward and deafening, John hopes idly that some criminal will blow up the flat just to make the madness stop. 

Sherlock eventually breaks the freeze by slurping his tea loudly and John realizes his hand is starting to go numb under the peas. 

John steps to Sherlock’s side and Sherlock doesn’t move, only his eyes darting up and away. 

“How’s your face?” John asks quietly. 

Sherlock shrugs, “I expect it looks worse than it is. She knows what she’s doing.”

John pulls Sherlock’s mug from his hands and sets it on the table carefully. He pulls a chair up close to Sherlock, so that one of Sherlock’s knees is caught between his own. 

John cradles the unbruised side of Sherlock’s face in one hand and presses the peas back to the bruised portion of his face as gently he can. Sherlock flinches a little under the touch, watching him intensely and John avoids making eye contact. 

Sherlock brings his hand to the plane of John’s face, mirroring John’s own position, and John presses into the touch a little. 

“John,” Sherlock says softly.

Somehow he makes John’s name sound like _please_. 

John kisses him gently this time, none of the urgency or violence of before. 

For a brief, shining moment, John sees as Sherlock does. Sherlock’s pupils blown wide, the race of his pulse in his neck, the way his tongue darts out to touch his lip when John pulls back, the fine tremble of Sherlock’s hand. 

John sees putting Sherlock to bed, brushing his hair back from his face and smiling when Sherlock whines about being mollycoddled, half asleep already. Sees himself watching Sherlock sleep, mumbling to himself even unconscious. He can picture the climb to his own room, the chill of a military bed and a spartan lifestyle, and sees himself instead, shoving Sherlock over and climbing into his bed. Sherlock who spends as much on his bedding as he does on his clothes, luxurious and soft and warm. 

John sees them in the morning. Sherlock in a dressing gown falling off his shoulder, John with the newspaper, both with fresh tea. Only this time, John gets to lean over and kiss Sherlock in his chair when he hands over a mug and Sherlock gets to mumble about sentiment, unable to hide a smile anyway. The morning light will filter in the windows and John will drag his chair a little closer to Sherlock’s and Sherlock will stick his cold toes under John’s thigh and pluck at his violin thoughtfully until Mrs. Hudson or a client, or the real world in general butts in as it always does. 

They will always come back to the flat, bruised or bloody or madly laughing, and always back to each other. 

Sherlock’s touch slides from John’s face over the back of his hand and down the plane of his arm, still pushing, blueprinting John with fingertips, and John sees it all mapped out before him in startlingly HD colour. 

And it’s going to be _glorious_. 

**Author's Note:**

> I also make fandom playlists!  
> [ **Vatican Cameos**](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xescjBZLkzApBjNGmUUqr?si=4GiptxDHTMqUtNemw79o9A) \- _A BBC Sherlock Playlist (listen on shuffle) - The click of handcuffs, wet pavement, split lips, bruised knuckles, out of breath, paper catching fire, text alert, gun oil, laughter in a dark alley._  
> [ **Peppermint_Witch on Spotify** ](https://open.spotify.com/user/peppermint_witch?si=7YGQK9N8RlyKfaHFkiilDg)


End file.
